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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Mountain stream in Central Pennsylvania
Photo by Doris High

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"When God Seems Silent"

"The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them" (Psalm 145:18,19). "He hears the prayer of the righteous" (Proverbs 15:29).

I enjoy recording and mixing music on the computer. I practice with my family and friends who have musical talent and of course each day's podcast contains a bit of mixing, since I use an audio background. I've recorded Brooksyne singing and playing the piano on occasion. Once I played it for Ester and asked, "Who's this famous musician?" Ester shrugged, as teenagers seem to do, and said rather bluntly in an annoyed tone, "O, that's just Mom."

Of course, to Ester, recording one's voice at home is certainly no big deal. After all, she's grown up with tape players, video recorders, etc. I remember when she was a toddler carrying around a toy-like tape recorder with the microphone dangling on the end of a stretch cord. But when I think about recording I come back to a very pleasant and humorous memory.

Back in the sixties my older brother Pat, who is now a pastor in eastern Pennsylvania, served in the Air Force in Germany for several years. Before he left he gave Mom and Dad a small reel to reel tape deck so we could send him recorded messages and he in turn would send messages back to us. The cassette recorder hadn't even been invented yet. Of course at that time it cost what seemed to be a small fortune to actually call on the telephone so this was really exciting innovation.

Once we gathered at my grandparent's litle white frame home in tiny Harwood, Missouri. As I recall, there were aunts and uncles and cousins all gathered around the tape machine preparing to record a greeting for Pat on this modern marvel of technology.

My grandmother, whom we called MaMa, bravely began speaking a few words of greeting into the machine. She paused, then looked up with a questioning look in her eyes, and said, "He's not there." She was expecting him to respond to her sentence immediately as in a phone conversation.

It's kind of that way with prayer. MaMa expected an immediate verbal acknowledgment from her grandson. In a sense she had to have faith that the machine would work. When we pray we thankfully have experienced immediate answers to our prayers, but at other times we must accept by faith that God hears us; that He really is there even though His response is not immediate and He may even seem silent.

Today I want to especially encourage all readers who are dealing with a period of waiting and God seems silent. You've prayed about a matter, perhaps time and time again, but you continue to wait. It may seem as if God is silent and at times even absent from the scene. But we can have confidence that He does hear our prayers and will indeed "fulfill the desire of those who fear Him."

Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my meditation,
Hearken unto the voice of my cry,
My King and my God;
For unto Thee will I pray,
My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning.
O Lord, in the morning
Will I direct my prayer
Unto Thee, and will look up. *

Be encouraged today,

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Daily prayer: "O Lord, hear me praying. Listen to my plea, O God my King, for I will never pray to anyone but You. Each morning I will look to You in heaven and lay my requests before You, praying earnestly. I know You get no pleasure from wickedness and cannot tolerate the slightest sin. Therefore proud sinners will not survive Your searching gaze, for how You hate their evil deeds…But as for me, I will come into Your temple protected by Your mercy and Your love; I will worship You with deepest awe."

(The Living Bible; Psalm 5:1-5,7).

Today's recollection of my brother's communication with family while in Germany in the late sixties stands in such sharp contrast to modern communications. Andy is a friend of ours in New England whose son Eric is serving with the Marines in Afghanistan, which of course is much more remote than Germany. Yet Eric is able to periodically call his mom and dad. His dad in turn communicates with an email prayer list he developed with regular email updates for those who've elected to be on his list.

"A Little Foolishness" After a rather long hiatus I have a brand new posting to my humor/satire blog; the story of Mildred Swanson, who joyfully discovers her "spiritual gift" is sending forwarded emails! Read more here. (Note: This material is satire!)

Today's Suggested Music

and Supplemental Resources

(Click on the link to open and play. In some cases you may also need to click again to start the song.)

"Psalm 5" Reading with song I believe this is the original artist singing and I so enjoy his earnest expression of faith.

"Psalm 5" Country version I came across this version in my search!

Here's some music from my home "studio"

Our friend Mike Book singing a song he wrote based on 1 Timothy 6:6 titled, "Godliness With Contentment"

Our friend Dan Fry playing the banjo, "I Saw The Light"

This is among my very favorite sounds! This is for John Zimmerman!

Send a message to Stephen & Brooksyne.

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